Norway – world’s second best reputation

Norway is second only to Canada in terms of country reputation, according to a recent report by Denmark-based Reputation Institute.

Reputation Institute, which is based in Boston and Copenhagen, produces the annual Country RepTrak report to advice countries on how to boost their global reputation.

Based on a survey of 48,000 people in G8 states and 30,000 in non-G8 countries, the report put the Scandinavian country ahead of its Nordic neighburs, as well as other countries that have consistently scored well over the years such as Australia and the Netherlands.

Canada, which won top position in this year’s ranking has come out as the winner four times out of the six years the report has been produced.

The report looks at 16 attributes for each nation. Evaluations include the country’s safety, whether the residents are welcoming, whether the government is effectively progressive socially and economically, and even the beauty of the countryside.

Given these criteria, here are the 20 most reputable countries in the world:

The report highlights that it is not necessarily the world’s most powerful countries, or the countries with the largest economies that enjoy the best reputation. The US came in 22nd in this year’s report.

The survey asked respondents questions such as whether they thought the country had a “good overall reputation” or whether they had a “good feeling” about it in order to establish the way people viewed different places from the outside.

The organization’s managing partner Fernando Prado insisted that reputation was important if countries wanted to attract visitors, noting that when people viewed a country positively it translated into more tourism dollars because it’s reputation dictated whether people were willing to visit.
Innovation Norway’s Audun Pettersen said to the Norwegian paper Dagbladet that many foreigners’ knowledge of Norway was “vague”, and they often associated it with fjords and nature; however, he noted that they also viewed it as having a “strong and open society”.